For a very long time, business owners defined a lead as someone who gives out contact details such as an email address in exchange for a free guide. Hence, you might hear people say “I have 1,000 leads in my email list but only 50 of those have brought from me”. This is why we’ve sought to redefine the meaning of a lead.
For us, a lead is someone who doesn’t just offer you free information but also engages with your brand. This engagement could range from booking an appointment, using your software, requesting estimates or engaging with marketing materials such as emails. In essence, a lead exhibit actions which are likely to lead to purchase
The battle for lead generation was bloody hell in 2021 as we saw multiple brands competing for the attention of a single prospect. This is why you need to take a different approach to your lead generation efforts in 2022
We’ve outlined 5 quick tips that will help you do so. Continue reading below to find out…
Create content that ties in with Buyer’s Journey
The concept of the buyer’s journey was first coined by Legendary Copywriter Eugene Schwartz who suggested that there are 5 levels of customer awareness
In the modern world, these five awareness levels are broadly grouped into 3 categories in what is called the “Buyer’s Journey”
Hence, every modern marketer groups every prospect they come across into one of the following categories:
And when we think in terms of sales funnel, it’s common to hear terms such as TOFU, MOFU and BOFU
- TOFU/ awareness stage – Prospects who are unaware of their problems, and are actively experiencing pain but don’t know if a solution exists
- MOFU/ consideration stage – these type of prospects are problem-aware and know about existing solutions but doesn’t know your brand offers it
- BOFU/ Decision stage – these are prospects that have defined their problem and know about existing solutions and which brand offers them. However, they’re looking for the best deal
Hence, to succeed with your marketing effort, you need to tailor your content around the buyer’s journey.
For instance, if customers are asking questions such as “what’s a lead magnet?”, we group them into the awareness stage or TOFU. Shoving your offer down their throat won’t work as they’re unaware of the problems they have and are just casually seeking information.
A perfect example of a TOFU content is this blog post from OptinMonster:
And here’s what a typical pre-sell page for prospects at the MOFU looks like:
Like most people, you might be wondering – “if I’m not introducing these prospects to my offer right away, how will I make the sale?”
Well, the best marketing strategy doesn’t just rely on giving information but offers prospects the next step in their buying journey.
In the case of someone asking questions such as “what’s a lead magnet?’ The next step should be knowing “what a lead magnet looks like” or “lead magnet examples”.
OptinMonster did this perfectly on the same content by offering to give their readers 69 lead magnet examples in exchange for their contacts..
Hence, a prospect that came to you with zero intention of buying can become a customer if you can help them identify their problems and also recommend a solution to it.
This is why you should focus on transforming contacts to leads and leads to buyers.
Leverage Influencer Marketing
Paid Ads are the quickest way to drive traffic to your lead magnet and also generate leads. With a well-crafted Facebook Ads campaign, you can generate 1000 leads with a tiny budget of $500. However, only a tiny percentage of those numbers convert to buyers.
This is because, with Ads, you’re throwing your net into a large ocean, and you have no control over the catch you make.
This is why marketers have to consider influencer marketing for generating leads. Jonah Berger, author of “contagious ideas” explains word of mouth in this quote..
“The most powerful marketing is personal recommendation, Nothing is more viral or infectious than one of your friends going to a place and giving it his full recommendation.”
However, influencer marketing creates more effect than word of mouth.
Relying on your friends to recommend your business or service will probably take forever. It’s a “snail-walk”. But, with Influencer marketing, it’s one to million if the influencer has a large network.
Automobile company Subaru attributed 10% of their sales from 2016 to influencer marketing and let’s not start with how brands such as Adidas and Nike have leveraged on celebrities especially Soccer starts to drive brand awareness and sales.
Lead Magnets Includes but aren’t limited to eBooks
Late in November 2021, Co-founder of Lemlist, Guillaume Moubeche hosted a webinar with 700+ prospects in attendance.
The webinar lasted for over an hour and at the end, he launched his cold email Masterclass which sold for $497 on the opening day.
Within 24 hours, that webinar worked so well that over 100 people had booked their spot. Would that result have been possible with a simple eBook?.
I doubt if it would.
When it comes to lead magnets, the first option that comes to mind is written content such as eBooks but they aren’t the only ones.
According to a survey conducted by Email marketing company GetResponse, Video lead magnets score higher conversion rates than written ones.
(Credit: GetResponse)
While we do not suggest sticking to one form of lead magnet, the form in which your content is presented depends on the type of information you want to pass across to prospects.
For topics where a bit of live demonstration is needed, it would make little sense to show those steps in screenshots attached to your eBook when the steps would have been easier to display in front of a camera
Hence, rather than sticking to one format, think of the easiest form for your audience to consume such information– it could be a video, ebook or podcast.
Test between online or offline reading
If you’re using eBooks and PDF as your lead magnet, it’s important to experiment on the best delivery method for your content.
Offline reading is the most favored delivery method and has been here for ages. However, a lot of brands are beginning to do things differently with their lead magnets.
Rather than asking contacts to go to their email and download the guide like in the image below:
Brands such as Ahrefs and CoSchedule are starting to leverage online reading. This means rather than downloading via emails, readers are redirected to lead magnet immediately after sign-ups and can read chapter by chapter just like this:
This method addresses two problems – first, it increases readability and secondly, it minimizes distraction.
Having immediate access right on the website minimizes excuses such as “I will read later” and the information can be consumed in one sitting.
Rather than relying on one delivery method, experiment with both to see which delivers better results.
Measure Lead Magnet Conversion
If you want to yield tangible results from your lead generation efforts in 2022, you need to do things differently and that starts with knowing how hard your lead magnet is working for your business.
Email marketing tools help you with lead nurturing. Hence, you can measure open rates, click-through-rate as well as deliverability.
But none of these tools directly measure lead magnet performances. For instance, they can’t tell you which contact is not reading your free guide, pages your leads spend the most time on and how many times your content is being consumed.
Knowing this data allows you to identify the type of content that resonates with your audience and helps you concentrate your marketing effort on areas of genuine interest.
Few tools will help you measure such Data but this is where OpenReads excel most. Not only can you create a lead magnet with our tool but also helps you measure conversion you never thought were possible.
Conclusion
The lead generation game is becoming more difficult this is why marketers need to be aware of the hard work their lead magnet is doing for their business. Measuring this data will reveal what you’re doing right and the areas to improve on.
If you need a tool that can help you track lead magnet conversion data, OpenRead.io is worth trying out at no cost for 7 days.